


Paddy's Pub, not sane

by therestisconfetti (AshesToFrost)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Background Relationships, Childhood Trauma, Ghosts, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide, inspired by hill house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshesToFrost/pseuds/therestisconfetti
Summary: The lack of control over who you truly are is a prison. Dennis was aware of this. Dennis knew how to escape.





	Paddy's Pub, not sane

**3:00 AM TUESDAY**

 

Dee woke up with a start. The light from her phone lit up.   
_ 3 missed calls. _ _   
_ Her head was pounding, like it had been struck with a hammer and split into two. She rolled over, took an Advil, and went back to sleep.

 

**2:45 PM MONDAY**

 

Something about the way she’d spoken felt as if it didn’t belong. It was familiar in a way he’d recognise the voice of a villain from a children’s cartoon. The way she’d enunciated ‘thank you’, the tone in her voice, all seemed to echo from a room far away, that had no place in his current life.   
Dennis continued to dry the glasses, and looked over to see that Mac was in an obviously flirtatious conversation with a male customer, grinning and leaning forward to listen to whatever was being said. The bar wasn’t bustling, but there was a good amount of patrons for the night, and Dee was all too happy to practise her comedy at them.   
There was no reason he couldn’t go over to the grandmother in the corner.   
Glancing around again to be sure nobody was outright watching what he was doing, Dennis put the rag down and went over, immediately sitting down opposite.   
“Hi, sorry, excuse me for one minute,” he said, taking her water from her hand and putting it aside, “just wanted to ask - do I know you?”   
The old woman didn’t raise her eyes to look at him, or even react at all. She mumbled something incoherent and fiddled with the rings on her aged hands.   
“Senile. Fantastic.”   
Dennis sat back and let out a long sigh of frustration, then stood, and went to walk past. A witch-like, boney hand grasped the fabric of his shirt sleeve in a sudden movement. She didn’t turn, but muttered loud enough to hear.   
“I’m sorry”   
As quick as he’d been accosted, he was free to move. Dennis went back to the bar in a daze, flushed and confused. Perhaps he was coming down with something. Or perhaps it was the medication.  
“Dennis, you okay there?”    
Dee’s voice broke him out of a trance he’d been in, rubbing the same water stain on the bar with a dry cloth. He stopped.   
“Yeah, of course. What’s up?”   
“Well, I was asking you that” She said, hitting him on the arm half-heartedly. With a grin too wide and a suspicious level of attention paid to him, Dee was clearly up to something. As long as money was the end goal, Dennis didn’t care.   
“Genuinely fine, Dee. I feel like I know the old woman in the corner, that’s all”   
“Oh?”   
From the way Dee’s smile instantly froze, Dennis knew he’d said something wrong. Her eyes glanced over at where the old crone was sat.   
“Yeah, she didn’t say anything though. Senile, probably”   
“You spoke to her?”   
“Waste of my time. So who is she? You clearly know”   
Dee shook her head, glancing behind him and gesturing. He turned around to see Mac hop-running over.   
Something almost clicked right then, but nausea suddenly took hold and interrupted that thought. Dennis leant on the bar and touched his forehead. Hot. Coming down with something.   
“Dunno what you’re talking about”   
One last look at the old woman was all he needed. He turned and peered over, trying to place her face, but instead of her actual appearance giving him any clues, it was in remembering her grabbing onto his arm earlier on that connected the dots. Pressure rose in his throat, and he pushed past Mac to go to the bathroom.   
It had been so long. Rational thought was too slow to be attainable. Once in a cubicle, he was violently sick.

 

**11:15 AM SUNDAY**

 

“I understand that perfectly, but you have to appreciate my frustration here.” Dennis sat forward, jabbing a finger in the air in emphasis. “I want to be spending my time enjoying myself, not coddling every moment of upset I have.”   
“I do understand. Recovery can feel like the opposite of progress”   
“I would keep blaming the meds, but you know, I kinda forgot to take them last week for a few days and I ended up feeling nauseous instead of anything positive. I backed out after ten minutes of trying. It’s like I’m a different person.”   
“You’re nobody else Dennis. You just have other things on your mind than-”   
“-Than getting off, I get it.”  
There was a sigh. “A significant decrease in libido is normal with your medication. How are you finding your new prescription so far?”  
Dennis leant back to consider how to begin. “I'm glad you asked doctor, because I tell you what, I've been so much more tired than usual. Anxious too, and that's unusual, especially lately”  
A nod. His doctor was incredibly hard to read. “All common side effects. Go on”  
“My hands shake occasionally. I'm more thirsty, which is a real bummer since I can't drink”    
There was no problem with a therapist being hard to read. Dennis found it easier to speak his mind if they had less of a personality.  
“Is there anything else you've noticed?”  
Dennis tapped his chin. “No...yes, I've been having intense dreams lately”  
“That's also quite common. If they're unbearable we could try lowering the dosage, but I do urge you to try to stay on them for a couple more weeks”  
He shook his head. “No, that won't be necessary. It's nothing I can't handle for now”  
Another nod. A silence. Writing. Dennis was aware that he was getting somewhere with all of this effort when he found it took barely a half-second to quell his irritated curiosity.  
“Dennis, I'd like to talk to you about what happened when you were fourteen years old”  
Oh come on. “Oh come _ on _ ”  
“You understood where we were going with this during our last session. There's no need to act as if I've landed you with an unfair ask. According to you, you were going to make an erotic film about the experience”  
“I was, until people started trying to tell me how to feel about it”  
He was being tested today.  
“What I'm asking you to do is to look at it as not yourself, but a fly on the wall. Examine the actual memory of it that you have, and not the one you've cultivated”  
“And then what? Pour my heart out to you?”  
“To a colleague, hopefully. I'm referring this particular part of the process to someone who specialises in complex post-traumatic stress disorder.”  
That old chestnut.    
“You’ll be going tomorrow, if that’s alright with you”

 

**10:30 PM MONDAY**

 

“You’re sure that you’re okay?”  
“Just gotta take care of a couple of things. You go on ahead, I’ll be home soon”    
Mac gave him a half-smile and squeezed his hand. “Sure thing. Be safe”   
So familiar.  
He knew he was allowed to have disliked the experience. It had taken a long time to accept that maybe the reality was that it was a disgusting thing to happen, and that other people would agree with that.  
Years ago, he remembered having to stay behind at school, watching Mac and the others leave him behind. Feeling his confidence go with them.  
The later the hour got the more power she had over him. The less he was of himself.  
Even now he'd find the memory stirring up sensations he was too disgusted to admit. So insidious were the deep roots of rot that had dug their way into his psyche that beyond his own hatred he couldn't see how far the influence reached.  
Turning back to the pub, he entered, locked the door, and sat down. Although he was very still for a very long moment, he was angry enough to scream.  
No target was needed. Only an outlet. Charlie smashed bottles, and Dennis looked around to see if there were any, but the closest he could be bothered to reach was a glass.    
Perhaps in the long run it was better to break the glass and pay the damages, rather than push down everything inside and ignore it.   
Picking up the glass, he gripped it tight and threw it to the floor. The smash was sudden, but incredibly satisfying. He reached over to grab another, and repeated the action. And again.   
Destroying something solid and tangible felt like a good anchor to reality. Every time she crossed his mind, he threw another glass to the floor.

  
  


**7:45 PM SUNDAY**

 

Atop the wooden surface of the bar, amongst the knots and patterns of the grain were a multitude of ringed water stains that Dennis was adamant should have been taken care of by now. He’d been cleaning it for the past hour or so, and his arm was beginning to ache. The repetitive movement wasn’t helping him feel any less tired, and although he’d given in to listening to the conversation that Charlie and Dee were having about going on another road trip, he was in danger of falling asleep.   
Dee wanted to visit a haunted house because it was all the rage. And if she wanted to go, Charlie was the one she’d need to convince.  
“Ghosts aren’t _ real _ Charlie, it-”   
“Yes they are! Yes they are! I’m not signing up to get turned into jelly because of your crazy ideas”   
“This house isn’t even that scary. We wouldn’t be staying overnight.”   
“Why do you even want to go if you’re not looking for ghosts?”   
“For starters, business hasn’t been great and I’d like to get as far away from the responsibility of that as reasonably possible for a day or so”   
“Eh”   
Charlie made a noise of what sounded like agreement, and Dennis looked over to see that he’d stopped flapping around and was considering the logistics of going.   
“I see that took no time at all”   
Dee turned around to face him. “Talk Frank into bringing a rum ham. He won’t listen to me, he says he’s too busy”   
“If the man’s busy, Dee, he’s too busy”   
“Don’t give me that,” she whined, “you know that Mac and Charlie will drink all the beer we pack within the first two hours.”   
“That is true,” Charlie admitted, nodding, while eyeing up the wood polish. Dennis put it under the bar.   
“It’s non-toxic. And Dee, why are you asking me? You know I couldn’t care less about whether or not you guys can get blackout drunk without me”   
Leaning onto the bar, Dee looked him over. “These new meds are knocking you out, Den. What dosage are you on again?”   
Dennis sighed, and put the rag he’d been wiping the bar with down. “Twenty milligrams of prozac a day, and they upped the topamax to three hundred.”   
Dee nodded in thought. Charlie picked the rag up and sniffed it hopefully.   
“It’s a good thing they did. I’ve been too exhausted to shout at the new guy”   
“New guy? We hired someone?”   
“No, Charlie. New counselor. How was it?”  
“Oh sick, dude” Charlie offered, half-heartedly throwing a metal sign.    
Dennis looked around, before committing to going into that can of worms. “Awful. One minute you’re trying to tell a decent story and the next it’s being nitpicked to shit. Who cares how it actually went? What’s important is how I view it now”   
That was met with a pair of expressions that were skeptical and very judgemental.   
“I’m not backing out! I just still don’t understand how to do any of this. I have to go to some group thing tomorrow. Apparently exposure to the truth of the matter is a start”   
“Interesting”   
“No,” Dennis raised a hand in anticipation of something awful brewing, “don’t say ‘interesting’ in that tone. I know you’re considering something ridiculous and I don’t want it. I can do this on my own”

 

**1:15 AM TUESDAY**

 

The school grounds hadn't changed a bit. Dennis remembered every voice that had bounced over his head, every hurried set of footsteps across the tarmac, but most importantly every time he had shrugged and waved to his friends as they left for home and he went in the opposite direction - back inside.  
Back behind the firmly locked doors, where he pretended he saw a flash of red that he knew to follow.  
The firmly locked glass doors.  
Brandishing the hammer in his hand, he slammed it against the glass repeatedly, for what felt like hours, putting all of his rage into each strike. Over, and over, and over. Yet nothing began to give.  
Dennis took a step back, a deep breath, and a moment to centre himself and the hammer in his hands. The glass would give. He just needed persistence.  
Every strike cracked through the night air. He could have used a gun. He should have brought a gun.  
He didn't need a gun. He kept hitting, pain in his shoulders fueling his anger, hot frustration pooling behind his eyes.  
Finally, as the glass began to shatter, he took a run at it and crashed through head-first, feeling the glass cut at him as it fell to the floor.  
Dennis sat on the floor for a moment. He could afford a minute or so. It was late, he was tired, and his head was aching.

 

**12:00 PM MONDAY**

 

“Thanks for coming, dude”   
Dennis lay a hand on Mac’s shoulder. Standing where he was, in the corridor outside the room he was due in, he could see inside. A couple of rows of chairs were placed at the back, while in the middle of the dull blue carpet was a circle of them, partially occupied. He felt sick. There could be no denying that.   
“Yeah, it’s no problem, are you okay?” Mac was facing him, both hands in his pockets, with a worried furrow in his brow and a respectful distance to his stance. Dennis appreciated it. Even as close as they were, Mac listened. Even when he could take their latest developments for granted.   
Dennis shook his head, but grimaced, and mumbled. “Just a tad nervous. I’ll be fine.”   
“Yeah man. You can do it, I’m proud of you”   
The sincerity of that statement made it worth going. Not talking to strangers about something he was supposed to regret, or listening to people he didn’t know describe their horrors and feeling something like a shadow of guilt because he just won’t be able to bring himself to care.   
Sighing and hesitating, before swinging the door open, Dennis walked in. He hung back for a moment while Mac took a seat at the back, quietly wishing him luck.   
“Dennis! It’s good to see you here. Come, sit down”   
It was, unfortunately, his new counselor that was waving him over. As there was no way to avoid it, he approached, sat down, and mentally thanked Mac for coming. It felt easier to hold on to what he wanted to say.   
“I see you’ve brought some moral support, good for you”  _ Yes. Good for me. _ “Does this mean you’d be open to sharing today? First time off to a solid start?”   
The optimism was a heavy burden. Despite hating everything about this, he did want it to go well. To work.   
“Sure, sure”   
Dennis sounded quieter than he would have liked. Something about it made him want to feel small.   
“Well, I think everyone is here. Dennis, why don’t you start?”   
“My name is Dennis Reynolds  _ (Hi, Dennis) _ and I’m here because when I was fourteen years old, I...had sexual relations with my high school librarian”   
It was important to say ‘I’.   
“I don’t...really consider myself to be one of you guys. It was pretty consensual. I would even say I talked her into it. I wouldn’t normally come here at all, in general, but I wanted to give this a go because I’m looking for results. You see…” Dennis paused, breathing in. Honesty was difficult to lurch into when he wanted something, yet it was the only option when he wanted the change to happen to himself.   
“You see, I’ve noticed something about myself that I would like to gain control over. I know how I feel about what happened, and yet whenever it’s brought up, or challenged or even when we’re talking about our friend Charlie and his...stuff, instead, I get angry so much more easily. When that happens, I hurt people that I don’t want to, and I tire myself out. It’s no good for anybody, and...well that’s why I’m here”   
He was met with a pleasing silence. It was weird and uncomfortable and very clumsily done, but it felt nice to be listened to. If only to not be interrupted.   
“Thank you for sharing, Dennis”   
Several of those sat in the circle were staring at him while attempting to be polite by not turning their heads. They weren’t subtle.  
“I’m compelled to ask you, how do you consider the idea of doing that yourself?”    
“Excuse me?”   
“Would you have sex with a fourteen year old child?”   
“No, of course-” Worded like that, it cut through him and made him feel strange. “Of course I wouldn’t”   
“Why not?”   
“A kid is a kid. They’re too young to understand. It’d screw with their perceptions of sex and damage their mental health. Along with the development of the brain”   
Nobody spoke, but he knew they wanted to.   
“And why would your experience be any different? Why are you exempt from these effects?”   
That was simple. “Because I just...am. I’m here. I’m fine. I feel no different”   
“Yet you just stated to all of us that you’re not”   
Picking holes and not listening to what he was saying was grating on him, but being proven wrong was making him feel more vulnerable than he’d like. Which was any level of vulnerability.   
“I think I’m done talking now. You’ve given me plenty to think about, or whatever.”   
Dennis couldn’t deny it. And he’d resigned himself to progress. Even on his medication he’d yell at Mac, or even the empty air of their apartment when he felt the injustice of his own existence. He could be open-minded to the process.

 

**2:30 AM TUESDAY**

 

Dennis watched himself walk through the rows of bookcases, picking out a few to read later in the year as he went. The sun had come in through the windows, warming the expanse of the library to the point of open windows and a cool, comforting summer breeze, even in the afternoon. Even when almost everyone else had left.  
He'd left Mac and Charlie to go home. He'd planned to message afterwards but he was always urgently needed elsewhere those nights.  
They were almost always a blank. He'd wake up the next morning safe in his own bed. Safe being the important word. Safe being the word he'd never questioned.  
It was difficult to remember when he could see the stark evidence in how young he was then. There was no pride to be found, only a horror, a need to stop it taking place, an unexpected need to protect his younger self like he would any other child.  
Even though the door was open, he heard the click of the lock behind him. Even despite the security cameras in every room now, he saw the red cardigan on her sleeve as she pulled the old blinds shut.  
Dennis watched it unfold before his eyes and saw no beauty in the act.  
As much as he hated to, he saw a nervous and confused, unsure kid with a misaligned excitement for something he was too young to understand.  
There were no bottles around to smash. Dennis had to lean on the wall with one hand to allow dizziness to lessen, anger building inside him with no clear target to direct it at. It was strange, and tainted, and exposed, and he was incredibly grateful for being on his own.  
But he wasn't taking this journey alone. He got out his phone and began to call his sister.  
It rang for a few moments, before going to voicemail once again. This time he spoke.  
“Dee? Hey, I just wanted to say that you were right. You are right. About all of this. Listen, I'm at the school and...and I need you to pick up the phone. _Please._ ”  
The last word was said in such a small voice, it barely made any noise in the expanse of the room. Dennis hung up, and scrolled down to Mac’s ID before pressing the call button.  
No answer. His phone must be off.  
That was no problem. None at all.  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fire exit door. The door itself was open by just a crack, allowing him to see the stairs behind it. Just up the stairs, beyond his line of vision he thought he could hear her voice. Or perhaps it was his own, just old enough to collect dust.

 

**10:30 AM MONDAY**

 

“Charlie! No, godammit, listen to me, I need you guys to help me out here!”   
Dee patted Charlie on the arm with both hands, ignoring the fact he was trying to wave her away.   
“Dee, go bother someone else, we’re trying to look at routes here”   
“This is way more urgent than that, guys, come on!”   
“Ugh!” Mac and Charlie stopped pouring over the comically large map that was mostly crumpled on the floor rather than the table they were at. “What is it, Dee?”   
“So last night I was thinking about how we could help Dennis out since he’s been a bit...eeehh,” Dee said, making a strained noise and pulling a face to signify her brother’s recent emotional fragility, “and I ended up getting a bit drunk and kiiiiinda making what could be a really bad decision”  
The ‘kinda’ was dragged out longer than she felt comfortable because as she started to speak she considered not owning up to her actions at all. She hoped her guilty expression gave it away.    
“Okay, we don’t wanna hear about some guy you slept with”   
“No!”   
“Seriously, Dee-”   
“I got in contact with the librarian.” She paused, and let it sink in for a moment. “Klinsky. Ms Klinsky. You remember?”  
“...Oh, shit Dee.” Charlie ran both hands through his hair, eyes widening in a surprisingly serious realisation. “He’s gonna freak”    
“No, wait a minute, easy solution. Ghost her”   
“It’s not that simple, Mac. She’s coming here. Today.”   
“What?!”   
As Charlie got off his stool in panic and they both followed, the map slid off and fell to the floor. Dee looked up at Mac. “You gotta make sure nothing bad happens. I mean, what was I thinking?”   
“You know I’ve got his back, but whether he goes off or not is way beyond any of us” He was entirely serious. They all were.   
“Just try to keep them separated. Or just pretend she isn’t there.”   
“Sure, sure” Mac nodded in agreement, his hands on his hips. “I’m going to meet him in a bit, anyway, I’ll keep him occupied”   
“You’d better! He’ll lose his shit!”   
“Frank?!”   
Frank was clambering out from underneath the map, hunched over still but staring up at them.   
“I was looking for my cock ring. I’m sure I dropped it last night around here, I can’t find it”  
“Ew, God-”    
“Frank, did you check the apartment?”   
“I’m sure I didn’t have it when I got back”   
“But you’re right, Deandra, you gotta keep her away. If that boy goes off the rails again, you’re all gonna be in the shit”   
“Yeah! We know!”

 

**2:45 AM TUESDAY**

  
The school rooftop was colder than he expected. Freezing. He stood, and swayed. He was tired. His vision was as red as blood. It toned the streetlights, and although it was dark at the top of the building, the soft, orange-yellow light of the library was warm behind his vision. Despair lay heavy in his bones.  
He'd originally come to the roof out of curiosity, but the blood-red view seemed to call to him. Dennis walked over, observing only from a foot away. Trees, concrete, harsh electrical light. It was nothing. As was anything. He looked down to see his feet dangling over the edge, finding himself sat down by the gutter guard. On the very edge.  
“Oh”  
He spoke, understanding. It hurt. All of this hurt. Dennis stood.  
_ I want to wake up from this,  _ he begged,  _ why can't I wake up?  
_ The lack of control over who you truly are is a prison. Dennis was aware of this. Dennis knew how to escape.

 

**5:15 PM WEDNESDAY**

 

“Oh,” Dee said, laughing and choking on her vodka, wiping at her cheeks, “it’s so sad, you know? But I can’t stop laughing”  
“Mm”  
“Because what? Like _what_? Not Dennis. This hasn’t happened. You know?”  
“Mm”  
“And yet it has and it’s so-it’s hilarious. Because it’s so...so...out of the blue. This doesn’t happen to us, what are we doing here? What did the coroner say again?”  
“Mulch”  
Dee snapped her fingers. “Mulch! Why that word specifically? That’s just asking me to imagine my brother in a blender - which is absolutely disgusting, by the way, I know I’m laughing right now but I also feel like I could vomit at any moment”  
“Mm”  
“And no viewing? At all?”  
“There was nothing salvageable.” Mac spoke up, grimacing as he took another swig of his beer. “Dental records were what identified him. Organs were smeared all over the...and his face was…” Making a movement with his hand, he waved it in front of his face and closed his fist.  
“Ugh” Vodka made Dee retch, but it was better than visualising that. “I’d ask you to stop there but there’s some part of me that wants to know the details”  
The vodka was salty. Dee went to refill her glass but it was still above halfway.  
“They’d tried to put bits back into place but-” Mac shook his head, and started again. “More like a smashed egg than a face”  
“Dunno how you weren’t sick, dude”  
“Oh, I was. I also might be again, this beer is salty”  
“So’s this. Weird”  
Dee paused, taking a moment to focus on anything but the unavoidable.  
“It’s probably tears, let’s be real. There’s no shame in it, is there?”  
“Nah, people cry all the time. I mean this? Totally cool to cry over”  
“Yeah”  
“Yeah”  
Dee flapped her t-shirt. In the heat of the afternoon, day drinking wasn’t helping her sweat any less. The bar was too quiet, and in the silence that followed she became too aware that Dennis would have spoken to fill it. She almost laughed in anticipation of whatever it would have been. Instead she considered the emptiness without it, then forcefully took a swig straight from her large bottle of Grey Goose.  
Frank and Charlie came in together, bursting into the quiet, drunken and as upset as herself and Mac.  
“Smashed like a kinder egg. I never want to see that again Charlie, I think I’ve lost my appetite for life”  
“Oh don’t say that, you’ll be eating rum ham again in no time”  
“I don’t think I could even look at a ham. Too fleshy.”  
“Aw, Frank, c’mon. Don’t put me off food too”  
“Oh, what’s the point! You don’t have kids to see them croak first”  
"You aren't even Dennis and Dee's father, Frank"  
Charlie said their names together like he always did; with an intonation that made it sound like one word, or a collected phrase. Dennis-and-Dee.  
"But I put the time in! I should have been putting up with that airhead until I died. He could have spoon-fed me in the care home"  
"That's what's bothering you? That you feel you wasted stuff on the guy?"  
"No. What's bothering me is how salty everything I drink is"  
"Yeah I'm getting that problem too," Deandra chimed in, raising her bottle, "I think we're crying into our mouths"  
"Speak for yourself. I got all that shit out of the way at the morgue. Now I'm just aggressive"  
"Yeah, about that. How come you were the only one they let in? Even Mac had to only see pictures"  
"They had to clean him up. I'm telling you, you don't want to have been allowed in"

 

**9 PM WEDNESDAY**

 

Mac had stayed behind after everyone had left, feeling as if he had to make an extra effort. It wasn’t a goodbye, when the pub would remain standing, but it felt as if it almost was. He’d already seen the state of his body in pictures, and didn’t want to think about that as Dennis.   
He wanted to sit and bawl like an upset child and demand that his emotions be acknowledged. He wanted to make it clear that this loss would devastate him.  
Mac thought on every moment that had transpired and wondered if he could have made a difference. If he had made a wrong choice and this was punishment. From when they were still at school and the awkwardness of barely knowing one another was still present, Mac had cared. Mac had loved.    
Mac had been the one to take care of Dennis when he’d been freaking out after staying behind at school. Mac had always been the one to sneak out after hearing the tell-tale sound of a stone hitting his window, to reassure him that everything was fine, that he would take him home. Mac never asked what the issue was - he’d had troubles of his own and had never wanted to go into it. Not to mention that he was used to Charlie.   
Mac had given up on drinking for the night. It wasn’t helping anything, and he wanted to go to sleep. The possibility of dreaming of when none of this had happened was far better than actually trying to deal with it. A funeral would have to be had, and then it would be over. Back to regular life and being forced to put his grief on the backburner.   
He wanted to dwell on it and not move on. So he continued to sit on his stool, lean on the bar, and cry it out.   
But Mac couldn’t see that he wasn’t completely alone. He couldn’t feel that he’d been pulled into a clumsy embrace, in some attempt to comfort. Dennis had yelled and shouted and tried to knock things over but nothing had gotten their attention. He was helpless to watch as Mac eventually got up and stumbled out of the bar, locking up for the night.

 

**SOMETIME. SOME DAY.**

 

Dennis wasn’t too sure how much time had passed when it happened, but eventually there came a day when Mac walked in, and looked right at him. His presence felt less so as in the real world, and more on his own frequency, where he had been alone, watching from the sidelines.   
“No,” he shook his head, not wanting to think about why, “you didn’t, did you? Tell me it’s something else”   
“I thought about it”   
Dennis exhaled. He could be heard, understood. Seen. Mac placed his hands on either shoulder and smiled. “Ironic, really. Charlie had talked me out of thinking about it, and then I was on my way round to stay over his for the night, and I got hit by some drunk asshole in a truck.”   
“Oh”   
“Yeah, so I stuck around for a bit, but ultimately...I think this is where I’m supposed to be”   
Pausing to consider anything else that needed to be said, Dennis smiled.   
“I think I made the drinks salty. I heard you guys talking about that”   
“Oh that was you?”   
“Yeah”   
“Wow, weird”   
“I was very sad, to be fair to myself. But now things have started to feel further away.”   
Without a thought on it, Mac took his hand.   
“We should go, right?”   
“We could. Or...we could stay here. Wait here, for the rest of the gang. Walk together, and all that?”  
It was clearer, easier to understand when they weren’t fully there, bleeding into everything around them. Each other. Mac knew what he meant without even having to ask.    
“Yeah, Dennis, that’s...yeah. That sounds nice”

  
  
  
  


**PADDY’S PUB: A TRAGEDY**

 

A LESSER KNOWN member of the haunted pubs in America, Paddy’s Pub is one that has no grisly or mysterious details. After the suicide of one of its owners, and the subsequent accidental death of another, it became a niche favourite for ghostly activity, visiting patrons claiming to have felt themselves bumped into by no clear cause, witnessing the bar polishing itself, and most notably, spectres ‘photobombing’ pictures taken inside the bar.   
Each original owner has now passed away, and as of today the bar stands empty and closed off officially to the public, but that has not stopped the enthusiasts of the supernatural breaking in to snap their attempts at getting a ghost on camera. Here, we have five of the best ones taken so far:   
  
[the first image depicts the pub while still open, a female behind the bar attending patrons, and behind her the faint outline of what could be two men laughing]

 

[the second image is a selfie taken by a group of girls, and a mysterious other figure who appears to be posing with them but was unaccounted for]

 

[the third image depicts the bar while empty, but in the corner is a man with a drink in his hand, and no apparent lower body]

 

[the fourth image depicts the outside of the bar, where three amateur ghost hunters wave and smile, and through a window the image of a face can be seen]

 

[the fifth image depicts the ghost hunters inside, taking a selfie by the bar, surrounded by five other faint figures who appear to have their arms around each other, smiling widely]


End file.
